


If I Ain't Got You

by charlies angel (bimmzee)



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-21
Updated: 2019-03-21
Packaged: 2019-11-26 18:47:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18184382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bimmzee/pseuds/charlies%20angel
Summary: "Hand me the world on a silver platterAnd what good would it beWith no one to share, with no one who truly cares for me"Star Quarterback, Alfred Jones, meets Arthur Kirkland in the beginning of senior year. Although sarcastic in nature, breaking through the walls he built around himself is something Alfred would find seemingly easy. Arthur can't seem to say the same about the other.





	If I Ain't Got You

**Author's Note:**

> I've wanted to write something hetalia related for a long time. And I've dabbled here and there before, but now that i'm not a cringy 15 year old fangirl, I think writing something more serious about a ship I've loved since I started watching hetalia will benefit me a lot. I hope all of you can enjoy this story as much as I will be writing it.

Have you ever just done something to please someone, even if it doesn't make you happy? Maybe it did before and maybe it's something you don't necessarily don't want to give up entirely. But you don't want to dedicate time, effort and motivation into it. Alfred Foster Jones, quarterback of his high school football team, was just that kind of person. He didn't hate football, actually he loved it. Though playing it has lost it's luster, and it has lost it's luster since around sophomore year of high school. Ever since he could remember, his father dreamed of his son being drafted into the NFL. Typical American dad dream, huh? But that's how his life was. Alfred sometimes wondered why his father never nagged his brother, but Matthew was good at his own thing. Hockey always sounded more fun than football to Alfred, and he even asked his parents one day if he could go to tryouts with his brother. His dad seemed to lose his mind over it. 

No. No, Hockey was Matthew's thing. The twins needed to do different things, shouldn't spend every living moment together. No, Alfred needed to do football. 

He's been playing for 11 years now. 11 years too long. 

College was a sure thing for him and his brother, but at the dinner table one night over summer break, Matthew mentioned how he wanted to major in computer programming and everyone was excited and happy for his brother. Alfred then speaking up himself and mentioning he wanted to get a degree in biology, silence feel over the table. 

_"Don't be silly, Alfred. You're getting a sports scholarship."_

_"Yeah but-"_

_"And my boy will be playing in the big game."_

Alfred never mentioned biology after that. 

Contrary to belief, most people who play sports in school have to keep good grades. And Alfred actually hasn't gotten anything lower than C since 8th grade. Science and Math always being his best subjects. He supposed he got lucky in that regard, considering the majority of people would struggle the most in those. He just wished he could put more of his time into them. 

"So, I'm a little buzzed and Hailey is in the process on pulling my pants down when some guy comes busting through the door yelling "SCATTER THE COPS ARE HERE" so Hailey opens her window, crawling outside and I follow behind her until the cops flashlights are on us and yelling at us to stop but with my pants around my ankle booked it into the neighbors yard and hid in their shed until around 3am."

Jared, Alfred's teammate was always getting himself into trouble it seemed. 

"So what happened afterwards?" Matthias asked. 

"Well, I pulled my pants back up obviously and snuck back home, if Gil rats any of us out though he's so dead." 

Alfred laughed a bit, pushing his glasses up a bit. "I don't get how you guys have the time to be out all the time."

"Cause our parents aren't up our asses 24/7 probably." Jared said. Alfred shrugged, leaning back against the wall of the hallway. 

"You got me there." 

The bell for class begins to ring throughout the school and people all around them start getting to class. 

"See you at practice today!"

Alfred waves, turning around to head to class himself when he bumps into another person a bit shorter than him. Expecting to see a girl when he looked down, he finds himself in front of a guy he's never seen before. His face was scrunched up a bit as he rubbed his forehead with his sweater covered hand.

"Damn- I'm sorry dude." Alfred said as he stepped back a bit. "You a freshman or something?"

The other's head quickly snaps up, almost defensively. "No- no I'm a senior."

The accent coming from his mouth surprised Alfred for a moment and for a moment he thought he understood the situation.

"Oh- exchange student?"

He shook his head. "No, I moved here a few weeks ago, It's my first day."

Alfred cursed a bit as the bell rang again, signaling that class had started. "Shit- now I got us both late for class, sorry man, I gotta go." Alfred said as he moved passed the other and started jogging down the hall.

"Wait! Uh-"

Alfred stopped in his tracks, almost falling over before turning around. "Yeah?"

"I uh- I actually need help finding my class." 

"Oh! yeah, sure thing, then your teacher can email my teacher so I don't get a tardy." Alfred said as he made his way back towards the other. Grabbing the paper from his hands to look over his schedule, he reads over his name.

'Arthur James Kirkland'

Hm, fitting. 

"Okay, so Bio 2, Mr. Travis. I know where that is." Alfred said as he handed the paper back to Arthur. "Follow me." 

Arthur nodded, fixing his bag onto his shoulder as he caught up to Alfred. 

"So you're from England?" Alfred asked. 

"That I am."

"What part?"

"Manchester."

"Cool, cool. So why the whole move to America? Texas, none the less." 

"My father got a job offer here, paying a lot more than what he made back home, so he took the offer." 

"Dang, I bet it's hard switching school in the middle of high school, to another country as well."

Arthur hummed as they reached the class, Alfred opening the door and smiling at the students inside before catching Mr. Travis' attention. 

"Ah- Jones, what are you doing here? I had you sophomore year not senior year." His former teacher said. 

"Dropping of a preset." Alfred said as he opened the door, letting Arthur through. 

"Missing an Arthur from your attendance?" Alfred asked. 

His teacher shaking his head as he chuckled. Waving Arthur into the classroom.

"Thank you, Alfred, get to class now."

"You'll give Ms. Harris an email right?"

"Yes, now get along."

Alfred smiled again looking back at Arthur. "See ya around." He said before making his exit from the classroom. Arthur giving a soft 'thanks' before the door slammed shut.

 

* * *

 

Alfred was a pretty popular guy he supposed. He wasn't aware of his own charm, his friendly attitude seemed to attract people. He was certainly attractive, even he knew that himself. Him and his brother were blessed in that regard, but neither bragged about looks. Humble, is a word people would use to describe them. The Jones' were humble kids.

Wiping the sweat from his forehead as his team gathered together, Alfred and the rest listened to their coach as he spoke.

"Now, making it to nationals should be easy, but winning? We have to work our asses off to get that title. We got it?"

"Yes, sir"

"I said, do we got it?!"

"Yes, sir!" the team yells in unison. 

"Get the locker rooms then." 

Alfred huffed, happy to be able to call it quits for the day. hour long practices 4 days out of the week would take a toll on you. Honestly without football and his weight training class, Alfred was sure he'd be a chubby guy, he ate like a hog after all. Following the others inside the school and to the locker rooms, he rinsed himself off in the showers quickly before changing into a pair of sweats and a tshirt as the others talked.

"You guys meet the new guy?"

"Who?"

"The British dude."

Alfred perked up, lifting his head for a moment while he tied his shoes.

"He's in my English class and the guy completely recited some thing from Shakespeare and now Mrs. Rial wants us all to do a full analysis about one of his stories."

"Yikes."

Alfred stood up, grabbing his bag and slinging it over his shoulder before speaking up. "Guess that means you guys should get on it then huh?" He said with an amused tone.

Matthias chuckled a bit, but the others didn't seem too amused from it.

"Yeah? Well, I'm sure he'd be angry if someone made him do extra work out of thin air."

Alfred signed, grabbing his keys from the side pocket of his bag.

"Cut him some slack, schools probably different where he's from." Alfred said. He closed his locket and grabbed his bag full of jerseys, guards and cleats. He really needed to do some laundry, ugh. "I'll see ya guys tomorrow!" He said, a few "Bye, Al' s rang throughout the locker room as he left, pulling his other bag full of equipment over his shoulder as he exited the school. He threw the bag into the back on his truck, along with his backpack before climbing into the drivers seat.

He looked over at the clock on his stereo as he started up his truck, reading the time.

'5:02pm'

He huffed, running a hand through his damp hair. He had to start on homework as soon as he got home. So he started his drive back to his house, letting the radio play quietly as he drove. It took about 5 minutes before he was pulling up to his driveway and parking. He got out of his truck and grabbed both bags form his trunk before trudging inside his front door.

"I'm home, Ma!" He said, dropping his backpack on the floor before moving past the living room where his mother was to get to the laundry room.

"Oh, Alfred. I got an email from your history teacher, he said you need to turn in a packet from last week."

Alfred cursed softly to himself as he opened his bag, pulling out jerseys, pants and the sort to shove into the washing machine.

"Yeah, I'll get it turned in." He said, pouring detergent into the machine before turning it on.

He walked out of the laundry room to sit down on the couch for a moment to relax. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes as real housewives played on the TV. He lifted a hand and took his glasses off to rub at his eyes before setting them back onto his face.

"How was school today?" She asked.

"Fine, coach said we might have longer practices soon, he's really eager for us to do well in nationals this year."

"Oh, well you know how proud everyone would be if your school won nationals, even if you lost playing the final game that's still an achievement."

Alfred nodded, looking over at his mom and yawning a bit as he spoke again. "There's a new student from England too, he ran into me this morning and I thought he was a freshman at first cause he was kinda short and his face was a bit babyish."

"He's a senior?"

"Yeah, I helped him find his class. but anyway, he said he moved here a few weeks ago. Don't you think that'd suck? To move in the middle of school?"

"Well, I'm sure he didn't really have a choice in the matter."

Alfred nodded, looking over when he heard the door opening and his father coming through. He stood up quickly, going to grab his bag so he could head upstairs to his bedroom and work on homework.

"Hey, dad."

"How was practice son?"

Alfred stopped on his way up the stairs, leaning over the railing.

"Fine, probably gonna have longer practices soon is all because of nationals coming up."

His father hummed and Alfred just waited a second until his dad was walking into the living room, not really acknowledging him much more. Alfred just clutched his bag and ran the rest of the way upstairs and went into his room, closing the door behind him. He threw his bag down next to his bed and grabbed his phone from his pocket. He unlocked it and just looked through his notifications, a few messages from coach, one from Matthew saying he'd be home in a few hours and the others just being social media. Opening up Instagram, Alfred scrolled through his feed, liking a few pictures from friends and some memes. Tapping the explore page, Alfreds hand hovered and his curiosity got the best of him as he clicked the search bar.

'Arthur Kirkland'

He looked at a few of the pages that came up, the first one definitely not being the guy he had met earlier at school considering it was a middle aged man in the profile picture. He clicked through the first few, none of them being the blonde until he finally clicked the one with a cat as the profile picture.

There weren't many posts, 11 to be exact and just about 70 followers. He looked at all his pictures, most of them being of what he believed to be his cat. But 2 pictures stood out to him. It was Arthur, standing with four other guys which Alfred guessed were his brothers? The older three at least seemed to look almost exactly like Arthur, but two had red hair and one had brown. Then the younger one was blonde just like Arthur but seemed about 12 if Alfred had to put an age to it. And there were all standing in front of a Christmas tree together, smiling as their photo was taken. Alfred zoomed in of the picture a bit, trying to get a better look at Arthur since his brief time with him in the hallway earlier that day he hadn't really looked at his much.

He sure was a small guy, that was for sure. His eyes looked green in the picture and his hair was more of a golden blonde unlike Alfred's sandy color. 

Alfred clicked out of the picture and went to the second picture posted on the account from a few years ago. Arthur had to be about 15 here, standing in front of Stonehenge with a bright smile on his face, his eyes practically gone and a little dog by his feet that he was holding the leash of. 

Alfred clicked out of that picture as well and went back to his latest picture posted. It seemed to have been from about 3 weeks ago and it was his cat laying on top of some stacked boxes with the caption. "Mittens like the new house." and 12 likes. 

After clicking out of that picture as well, Alfred looked back to the his profile overall, reading his bio that said 'I love cats and star trek'. Hell, Alfred liked cats and star trek too. So he tapped the follow button before setting his phone away to get started on homework. 

 


End file.
